East-Asian diplomacy

Yankee stay home

A new form of Asian summitry, which excludes America

WHAT would an East Asian Summit entail? When the decision to hold such a gathering was first announced, at the annual summit of the Association of South-East Asian Nations in Laos last month, no one seemed to know the answer. Ong Keng Yong, ASEAN's secretary-general, had to retract a press release stating that the new grouping was simply a revamp of ASEAN+3, which brings the leaders of China, Japan and South Korea together with their South-East Asian counterparts. The details, he said, were still up for negotiation. But Malaysia, which will host the new club's first get-together next year, has an ambitious agenda.

In a speech in Putrajaya on December 6th, Abdullah Badawi, Malaysia's prime minister, said the summit should lay the groundwork for an East Asian Community, modelled on ASEAN's own plans for integration. The members of the EAC, he suggested, should build a free-trade area, co-operate on finance, and sign a security pact. If implemented, the theory runs, these proposals would transform East Asia into a cohesive economic block, with as much clout as Europe or America.

In fact, some of these schemes are already in motion. China, Japan and South Korea have all signed ASEAN's Treaty of Amity and Co-operation, which commits them to renounce the threat or use of force in their dealings with ASEAN countries, among other things. All three countries have also agreed to negotiate free-trade deals with ASEAN. Thaksin Shinawatra, Thailand's prime minister, has persuaded East Asian countries to buy one another's bonds, to help guard against the depredations of the free market.

But inventing a new acronym and holding yet another summit are unlikely to speed these measures up. For one thing, the new grouping would raise awkward questions about China, Japan and South Korea's relations with one another, which are more fraught, on the whole, than their ties with ASEAN. Indeed, Japan seems to be engaging with ASEAN thanks more to its rivalry with China than to a determination to open its economy. Even within ASEAN, commitment to economic integration is weak. Indonesia, for one, resisted the proposed new summit, for fear it might eventually overshadow ASEAN itself.

When pressed to explain exactly how East Asian Summits would differ from ASEAN+3 meetings, Mr Ong suggested that non-ASEAN countries would be able to host them. That is not as inconsequential as it sounds. Rodolfo Severino, Mr Ong's predecessor, assumes that China will host the second East Asia Summit. Whether it does so or not, China, as the region's pre-eminent economic and military power, will doubtless dominate the proceedings.

In 1990, America shot down another putative pow-wow, dubbed the East Asian Economic Caucus, precisely for fear of losing influence in the region. All East Asia's many other formal talking shops, such as the ASEAN Regional Forum, or the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit, include America. Even if the proceedings do not amount to much, the new club will give China an unrivalled chance to shine. Which, presumably, is the whole point.